MOSCOW (MRC) -- Mura Technology, the UK-based technology company, has announced that construction has started on the world’s first commercial-scale plant to use its revolutionary “hydrothermal” process, able to recycle all forms of plastic waste and provide the raw ingredients for a sustainable circular plastic economy, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
HydroPRS (Hydrothermal Plastic Recycling Solution) is a revolutionary advanced recycling process designed to tackle plastic that cannot currently be recycled and instead ends up polluting the natural environment.
The first plant to use the technology has begun construction in Teesside, UK, to be operational in 2022 and able to process 80,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year. It will form the blueprint for a rapid global rollout that will see one million tonnes of capacity in development worldwide by 2025 – equivalent to nearly half the plastic packaging waste produced in the UK each year. Sites are planned in Germany, the US and Asia.
Mura’s proprietary HydroPRS™ process uses supercritical steam to convert plastics back into the oils and chemicals they were made from, ready to be used for new virgin-grade plastic products. It can recycle all forms of plastic – including ‘unrecyclable’ products such as multi-layer, flexible plastics used in packaging – with no limit to the number of times the same material can be recycled. This means it has the potential to eliminate single use plastic and make the raw ingredients for a circular plastics economy, creating value, not waste.
Global plastic production also creates an estimated 390m tonnes of CO2 every year – equivalent to over 172m cars.It accounts for 6% of global oil consumption today and is set to increase to 20% by 2050.[xi] Advanced recycling processes reduce the need for fossil fuel extraction for virgin plastics. In addition, they can save approximately 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of plastic recycled compared to incineration.[xii] On completion, the Teesside plant has the potential to eliminate up to 120,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, compared to incineration of the same plastic waste.
As per MRC, Russia's output of chemical products rose in February 2021 by 5.3% year on year. Thus, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 7.5% in the first two months of 2021. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, mineral fertilizers accounted for the greatest increase in the January-February output.
thylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 241,030 tonnes in January 2021 versus 217,890 tonnes a year earlier. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 141,870 tonnes in January 2021 versus 123,520 tonnes a year earlier. Supply of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased.
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